My 2nd year of collecting baseball cards, and the last card set before expansion to 24 teams and divisional play. I have completed the whole set. (Series 1-5, and 7 during 1968. In my neighborhood, the 6th series was unavailable. I completed this in the 1980s.) -- 28-SEP-2009

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Back on Topps' Radar: Jim Roland

Jim Roland (#276) had cards from 1963-1965, but missed out in 1966 and 1967. Here he resurfaces to begin a string of 5 seasons on a baseball card.

Jim was signed by the Twins in 1961, and spent only 2 seasons in the minors before making his major-league debut in September 1962. He spent the following 2 seasons with the Twins. Being a swingman, Baseball-Reference.com doesn't list him as being among the team's top 10 pitchers, but in 1963 he was 9th in innings pitched (49), and in 1964 he was 6th in innings pitched (94).

Roland spent the entire 1965 and 1966 seasons in the minors, rehabbing from arm injuries. He pitched about 30 games each season, mostly as a starter.

Jim returned to the Twins in 1967, and took his place alongside all the other Jims on the Twins' pitching staff. In 1967, he appeared in 25 games (all in relief) with 35 innings pitched. (I guess he was the "situational lefty".) The following season he made 4 starts and relieved in 24 games, but he was no longer the senior southpaw in the bullpen, as Ron Perranoski had been acquired from the Dodgers in the off-season.

In February 1969, Roland was sold to the Athletics, where he joined rookie Rollie Fingers and veterans Lew Krausse and Paul Lindblad in Oakland's bullpen.

After 3 seasons with the A's, Jim was sold to the Yankees in April 1972. At the end of August, the Yanks traded him to the Rangers for pitcher Casey Cox. With Texas, Roland pitched 5 games (a total of 3.1 innings), and fashioned an 8.10 ERA. That was enough to call it a career after the season.

Jim Roland died at age 67 on March 6, 2010 in Shelby, North Carolina, about 90 miles from his birthplace of Franklin, NC.

Set description I posted in Zistle

The 1968 Topps set included 598 cards, 11 fewer than the previous year. As in 1967, the cards had vertical backs. Topps returned to the teams’ color scheme that was used in the 1966 set (and would also be used in 1969). Cards in the high-numbered 7th series are more difficult to find, due to limited distribution that late in the season.

Among the cards are 20 manager cards, 12 league leader cards, and 8 World Series cards. Inexplicably, there are only team cards for 13 of the 20 teams. The set includes just 30 rookie stars cards (down from 43 the previous year), and there is no Giants Rookie Stars card, which is odd considering that Bobby Bonds would have been a candidate for that card. Multi-player cards decreased from 13 in 1967 to just 3 in the 1968 set. Two of them feature stars from multiple teams. All-star cards (20) returned to the set in 1968, after being absent for several years.

The 1968 set includes the final cards for 48 players and 2 managers, including long-time veterans Eddie Mathews and Roger Maris (who both wrapped up their careers in the 1968 World Series), Rocky Colavito, Elston Howard, Bill Henry, Larry Jackson, Al Worthington, Norm Siebern, Larry Sherry, Jim Bouton, and Floyd Robinson.

Notable rookie cards in the set are Nolan Ryan and Jerry Koosman (on the same card) and Johnny Bench. Other rookie cards in the set (all “solo” cards) include Gary Nolan, Don Wilson, Manny Sanguillen, Mike Marshall, and Danny Frisella.

1968 rookies with significant playing time who were omitted from the set include Reggie Jackson, Bobby Bonds, Del Unser, Bobby Cox, Hector Torres, Tom Burgmeier, Marty Pattin, and Sparky Lyle.

Other quirks in the 1968 set: - For some (contractual?) reason, all the Astros cards show the team name as “Houston”, and all Astros logos are airbrushed out of the photos. - Since the Athletics moved to Oakland in the off-season, all photos are airbrushed. - As mentioned above, 7 teams did not have a team card, and there was no Giants Rookie Stars card. - The design of the “burlap” borders was changed after the first series. - The "Topps All-Rookie Team" trophy is missing from the cards for Rick Monday, Rich Nye, and Dick Hughes.